Doubts: How Can This Be?
Author Unknown
It is common for survivors of ritual abuse to question their own memories. Who wouldn't? It is difficult at best, to believe or accept that the people who were supposed to LOVE us, abused us in such horrendous ways. Ritual abuse memories are often beyond belief! Was this real? Could this really have happened? Where is the evidence? As survivors remember and let go of the painful memories, other people will begin to ask the same questions. The public in general, has a difficult time accepting that ritual abuse exists. In their own fear, they turn a deaf ear and blind eye to the reality of abuse. They don't want to hear about it. They don't want to believe it. Believing in the horrendous would threaten the safety of their OWN world. So, they deny it... negate it... and disbelieve.
Disbelief or doubt, creates additional challenges for healing from ritual abuse. Our perpetrators were very clever in their ways of "helping" the very young child (in the magical thinking preschool years) believe that what happened was either a bad dream, or her imagination. What else IS a child to believe? One survivor told of her current and seemingly unfounded fear and aversion to clowns. Her supposedly "loving" parents bought her clowns to decorate her bedroom. Then, the parents and cult members painted their faces, wore masks and dressed as clowns during the abusive rituals. The child was drugged with mind altering drugs during the abuse, and with sleeping pills after the abuse. When she woke up in the morning and cried to her parents about the clowns hurting her during the night, her parents calmly "covered up" by telling her it was just her imagination, or that it "must have been a bad dream." What would the child "choose" to believe for her own survival and sanity? Perhaps ALL of us should ask the same question. Which would "I" choose to believe if I were that small child?
Survivors and therapists alike must understand a key point when it comes to memories. "You cannot heal from a wound that isn't there." Are you healing? Are the anxieties and fears that have plagued you your entire life dropping away as you progress through therapy? Have you remembered HOW the cult destroyed the evidence? The key to healing is to "live well and be happy."
When survivors talk about the secrets, there will be those who will try to convince the public that it "just ain't so." Some of the active backlash individuals have tried to suggest that books create abuse memories for people. I assure you, survivors do not want to spend their time, money or energy on painful memories because they have nothing better to do! (Personally, I'd rather spend it on a trip to Maui :-)
Your memories, your healing and your truth belong to you! What perpetrators choose to believe, belongs to them. Don't take what isn't yours. Most likely, if you are a survivor, you already have ENOUGH to deal with! Heal, be free and know that you have survived the worst. You will survive the memories too!
The anger and pain you feel toward the backlash movement may be leftover pain from all the times your abusers told you it was your imagination, it was just a bad dream, or you were making it up. They told you those things to cover up their lies! I suspect we will hear more and more of these kinds of comments as survivors tell what happened. Survivors are speaking out and healing. Much of the abuse that takes place in ritualistic settings involves child pornography and prostitution, not to mention drug abuse. There is big money in all of those activities! Many of those who are trying to say "it just ain't so," have a financial interest in keeping the secrets untold. There will be more of a NEED for some people to cover up as more survivors tell their histories.
The cult is not gone, they are probably more active now than they may have been during our childhood. The cult may continue to try to intimidate or negate the memories of survivors. It takes just a handful of "false therapists" to negate the stories of many survivors who are telling the truth. The publicity and frenzy around these few cases causes people who are not educated to the truth of ritual abuse, to disbelieve. There are a few people working very hard to cover up the truth of many. Don't let those "few" cause you to turn a deaf ear or blind eye to someone who needs your help in healing from abuse. Do not be blinded by their cover ups today.
Cult members continue to use deceit and lies in their own public statements. They claim the therapist lied or the survivor lied. Ironically, the name of one backlash organization even uses a false name. Any way you look at it, lies are involved and Satan obviously has his hand in that somewhere since he is the father of lies!
The hope is in the light of TRUTH exposing the darkness. Some who stand in the dark, may choose to allow the light to heal their own wounds, or they will lash out in a futile attempt to keep the light from shining on their own dark shadows.
The HOPE in healing from ritual abuse is about allowing the light of truth to gently heal the wounds. Today isn't yesterday! Today you have a "choice." Today the light is no longer a train at the end of the tunnel. It is the light of God's healing love. God's love is offered to those who stand in the darkness of fear and doubt. It is offered to those mired in anger and hate because survivors are exposing their lies. It is offered to those who once upon a time, were forced to believe the ULTIMATE LIE of the cult, that God abandoned them in their pain. It is offered to ANYONE who makes the "choice" to accept it.
God said, "I have placed my rainbow in the clouds as a sign of my promise until the end of time, to you and to all the earth. When I send clouds over the earth, the rainbow will be seen in the clouds, and I will remember my promise to you and to every being, that never again will the floods come and destroy all life. For I will see the rainbow in the cloud and remember my eternal promise to every living being on the earth."
Thank you God... for hope in new beginnings... and new life through you!
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